al-Insān al-Kāmil, Bāb 16 -- Life
full parallel manuscript · complete bitext
الإنسان الكامل · الباب السادس عشر في الحياة
The sixteenth chapter of al-Insān al-Kāmil, rendered as a full parallel manuscript: every segment, aligned line by line. With this chapter al-Jīlī begins to treat each of the divine attributes in its own right, starting from Life. His thesis is a thoroughgoing panvitalism: existence and life are one, so “there is nothing of the existents but that it is living” — the grades from the complete life of the Real and the Perfect Human, through the incomplete life of ordinary humans, angels, and jinn, down to what merely seems dead (plant, mineral). Life is the indivisible single-substance, present whole in every thing, and it is the one divine Life “by which the world subsists”; the existence of each thing is its very glorification of the Name “the Living,” and al-Jīlī reads the glorification of every Name in turn — the Knower, the Powerful, the Willer, the Hearer, the Seer, the Speaker — as the modes by which the existents praise their Lord.
Editorial note. Two things in this chapter are worth marking. First, its boldest claim is exegetical and metaphysical at once: al-Jīlī reads “there is not a thing but it glorifies Him with His praise” (17:44) as a real utterance — “real, not metaphorical” — heard by the one to whom God unveils it, on the ground that all things truly live; and the eschatological reports of deeds and words appearing as living forms that address their doer are adduced as confirmation. Second, this chapter carries al-Jīlī’s clearest statement of his own method and the book’s character (§22-23, §29-30): “most of what I have set down in this book, no one set down before me in a book, so far as I know,” the knowledge given “by the Eye from which nothing is veiled” — that is, by unveiling (kashf) and direct vision, with the conventional terms borrowed only of necessity; and the scriptural proofs he cites are “for the sake of the one addressed, not because we found this unveiling by this confirmation.” His faith in the unseen is, he says, “a faith of realization, not a faith of imitation.” This tells the reader plainly how to take the whole work: as the report of vision corroborated by scripture, not as scriptural exegesis. A second-reader pass is advisable.
الباب السادس عشر في الحياة
Chapter Sixteen: On Life (al-Ḥayāt)
وجودُ الشيء لنفسه حياتُه التامة، ووجودُ الشيء لغيره حياةٌ إضافيةٌ له. فالحقُّ سبحانه وتعالى موجودٌ لنفسه، فهو الحق، وحياتُه هي الحياة التامة، فلا يلحق بها ممات. والخلقُ -- من حيث الجملة -- موجودٌ دون الله، فليست حياتُهم إلاَّ حياةً إضافية.
The existence of a thing for itself is its complete life, and the existence of a thing for another is an added [/relative] life for it. So the Real (glory be to Him, exalted is He) is existent for Himself -- so He is the Real -- and His life is the complete life, [such] that no death attaches to it. And the creation -- in sum -- is existent [as something] below God, so their life is nothing but an added life.
ولهذا التحق بها الفناءُ والموت. ثم إن حياة الله تعالى في الخلق واحدةٌ تامة، وهو الإنسان الكامل، فإنه موجودٌ لنفسه وجوداً حقيقياً لا مجازياً ولا إضافياً قُرْبه. فهو الحيُّ التامُّ الحياة، بخلاف غيره.
And for this, annihilation and death attach to it. Then [know that] the life of God (exalted is He) in the creation is one [and] complete -- and it is the Perfect Human (al-insān al-kāmil); for he is existent for himself, [by] a real existence, not a metaphorical one, nor an added one [in respect of] his nearness. So he is the Living, complete of life -- unlike other [than him].
glossary: insan-al-kamil
والملائكةُ العَلِيّون -- وهم المهيَّمة، ومن يلحق بهم، وهم من العناصر، كالقلم الأعلى واللوح، وغيرهما من هذا النوع -- فإنهم ملحقون بالإنسان الكامل، فافهم.
And the high angels -- and they are the rapt ones (al-muhayyama), and whoever is joined to them, and they are of the [primal] elements, such as the Supreme Pen (al-qalam al-aʿlā) and the Tablet (al-lawḥ), and other [than the two] of this kind -- they are annexed to the Perfect Human. So understand.
glossary: insan-al-kamil, qalam-ala, lawh-mahfuz
ومن الموجودات من ظهرت الحياةُ فيه على صورتها، لكن غير تامة، وهو الإنسانُ الكاملُ الحيواني، والمَلَك، والجنّ. فإن كلاً من هؤلاء موجودٌ لنفسه، بعلمٍ أنه موجودٌ، وأنه كذا وكذا.
And of the existents is one in which life appeared upon its [own] form, but incomplete -- and it is the complete animal-human, the angel, and the jinn. For each of these is existent for himself, by a knowing that he is existent, and that he is such-and-such.
'The complete animal-human' (al-insān al-kāmil al-ḥayawānī) is the ordinary fully-developed human being at the rational-animal level -- distinct from the true Perfect Human (al-insān al-kāmil) of §3, who alone has 'complete life.' al-Jīlī grades life: complete (the Real, the Perfect Human, §3); present-in-its-form-but-incomplete (ordinary humans, angels, jinn, here); present-not-in-its-form (the rest of the animals, §7); and seemingly void (plant, mineral, §8) -- yet all are alive (§8).
ولكن هذا الوجودُ له غيرُ حقيقي، لقيامه بغير قُرْبه، موجودٌ للحق لا له. فكانت حياةُ قُرْبه حياةً غيرَ تامة.
But this existence is, for him, non-real -- because of its subsisting by [something] other than his [own] nearness; existent for the Real, not for himself. So the life of his nearness was an incomplete life.
ومنهم من ظهرت له الحياةُ فيه لا على صورتها، وهو باقي الحيوانات.
And of them is one in which life appeared, not upon its [own] form -- and it is the rest of the animals.
ومنهم من بطلت فيه الحياةُ، فكان موجوداً لغيره لا لنفسه، كالنبات والمعدن والحيوان وأمثال ذلك. فصارت الحياةُ في جميع الأشياء، فما ثَمَّ شيءٌ من الموجودات إلاَّ وهو حيٌّ، لأن وجودَه عينُ حياته. وما الفرقُ إلاَّ أن يكون تاماً أو غيرَ تام.
And of them is one in which life is [seemingly] void, so that it was existent for another, not for itself -- such as the plant, the mineral, the [inert] animal, and the like of that. So life came to be in all things: there is nothing of the existents but that it is living, because its existence is the very [reality of] its life. And the difference is only that it be complete or incomplete.
The panvitalist thesis of the chapter, and a corollary of waḥdat al-wujūd: since the one existence is the Real's life flowing in all (the wujūd sārī of Bāb 7), and existence is life, 'there is nothing of the existents but that it is living.' What looks dead (mineral, plant) is alive in a mode merely veiled from us (§24).
بل ما تمَّ إلاَّ من حياتِه تامة، لأنه على القدر الذي تستحقه مرتبتُه. فلو نقص أو زاد، لعُدمت تلك المرتبة. فما في الوجود إلاَّ من هو حيٌّ بحياةٍ تامة. ولأن الحياة عينٌ واحدة، فلا سبيل إلى نقصٍ فيها، ولا إلى انقسام، لاستحالة تجزُّؤ الجوهر الفرد.
Nay, nothing was complete except [by] its complete life -- because it is at the measure that its rank deserves; for, were it to lessen or to increase, that rank would be lost. So there is, in existence, none but one who is living with a complete life. And because life is a single very-[reality], there is no way to [any] lessening in it, nor to [any] division -- for the impossibility of the partitioning of the single substance (al-jawhar al-fard).
فالحياةُ جوهرٌ فردٌ، موجودٌ بكماله لنفسه في كل شيء. فمشيئةُ الشيء هي حياتُه، وهو حياةُ الله التي قامت الأشياءُ بها. وذلك هو تسبيحُها له، من حيث اسمه الحيّ.
So life is a single substance (jawhar fard), existent in its completeness, for itself, in everything. So the will [/willing-being] of the thing is its life; and it is the life of God, by which the things subsist. And that is their glorification (tasbīḥ) of Him, from the standpoint of His name 'the Living' (al-Ḥayy).
Life as the single substance (al-jawhar al-fard, cf. Bāb 1 §55) present whole and indivisible in every existent -- so that the one divine Life is the very being by which all things subsist, and their existing IS their 'glorification' of the Name al-Ḥayy. The per-Name tasbīḥ doctrine that follows (§11-18) is al-Jīlī's reading of 'everything glorifies Him' (17:44).
لأن كل شيءٍ في الوجود يسبّح الحقَّ من حيث كلِّ اسم. فتسبيحُ الموجودات لله، من حيث اسمه الحيّ، هو عينُ وجودها بحياته. وتسبيحُها له، من حيث اسمه العليم، هو دخولُها تحت علمه.
Because everything in existence glorifies the Real from the standpoint of every Name. So the glorification of the existents to God, from the standpoint of His name 'the Living,' is the very [reality of] their existence by His life. And their glorification of Him, from the standpoint of His name 'the Knower,' is their entering under His knowledge.
glossary: asma
وقولُها له: يا عالِم -- هي كونُها أعطته العلمَ من نفسها، بأن حكم عليها أنها كذا وكذا.
And their saying to Him, 'O Knower!' -- it is their having given Him the knowledge, from themselves, by [the fact] that He ruled, upon them, that they are such-and-such.
وتسبيحُها له، من حيث اسمه القدير، هو دخولُها تحت قدرته.
And their glorification of Him, from the standpoint of His name 'the Powerful,' is their entering under His power.
وتسبيحُها له، من حيث اسمه المريد، هو تخصيصُها بإرادته على ما هي عليه.
And their glorification of Him, from the standpoint of His name 'the Willer,' is their being specified, by His will, [as] what they are.
وتسبيحُها، من حيث اسمه السميع، هو إسماعُها له إياه كلامَها -- وهو ما تستحقه حقائقُها بطريق الحال، لكنه فيما بينها وبين الله بطريق المقال.
And their glorification, from the standpoint of His name 'the Hearer,' is their making Him hear their speech -- and it is what their realities deserve by way of [their] state, but [which is], in what is between them and God, by way of [actual] utterance.
وتسبيحُها له، من حيث اسمه البصير، هي كونُها تحت بصره بما تستحقه حقيقتُها.
And their glorification of Him, from the standpoint of His name 'the Seer,' is their being under His sight, by what their reality deserves.
وتسبيحُها له، من حيث اسمه المتكلم، هي كونُها موجودةً عن كلمته.
And their glorification of Him, from the standpoint of His name 'the Speaker,' is their being existent from His word.
وقِسْ على ذلك باقي الأسماء.
And measure the rest of the Names by that.
glossary: asma
فإذا علمتَ ذلك، فاعلم أن حياتها محدَثةٌ بالنسبة إليها، قديمةٌ بالنسبة إلى الله، لأنها حياتُه، وحياتُه صفتُه، وصفتُه ملحقةٌ به. ومتى أردتَ أن تتعقّل،
So when you have known that, [then] know that their life is originated in relation to them, [yet] pre-eternal in relation to God -- because it is His life, and His life is His attribute, and His attribute is annexed to Him. And whenever you wish to reason [/conceive]:
فانظر إلى حياتك وتقييدها بك، فإنك لا تجد إلاَّ روحاً مختصاً بك، وذلك هو الروحُ المحدَث. ومتى رفعتَ النظرَ عن حياتك من حيث اختصاصها بك، وذقتَ من حيث الشهود أن كل حيٍّ في حياته
then look at your life and its restriction to you: for you find nothing but a spirit particular to you -- and that is the originated spirit. And whenever you lift the gaze from your life, in respect of its being particular to you, and taste, by way of witnessing, that every living one [is] in his [own] life
كما أنت فيها، وشهدتَ سريانَ تلك الحياة في جميع الموجودات، علمتَ أنها الحياةُ الحقُّ، اللهُ، التي قام بها العالم. وتلك هي الحياةُ القديمةُ الإلهية، فافهم ما أشرتُ لك في هذه العبارات.
as you are in [yours], and [when] you witness the flowing of that life in all the existents, you know that it is the Real Life -- God's -- by which the world subsists. And that is the pre-eternal, divine Life. So understand what I have indicated to you in these expressions.
The one divine Life as the flowing existence (al-wujūd al-sārī, Bāb 7 §15): your own life, looked at as particular to you, is 'the originated spirit'; looked at as the one Life flowing through all the living, it is 'the Real Life, God's, by which the world subsists.'
بل في جميع كتابي هذا. إذ كثُرت مسائلُ هذا الكتاب مما لم أُسبَق إليه، ما خلا المصطلَحَ عليها، فإنه لا سبيل
Nay, [understand it] in all of this book of mine. For the questions of this book are many, of what I have not been preceded to -- save [for] the [technical] terms agreed upon for them; for there is no way
إلى التحدث في علمٍ إلاَّ باصطلاح أهله. وإلاَّ فأكثرُ ما وضعتُه في كتابي هذا لم يضعه أحدٌ قبلي في كتابٍ فيما أعلم، ولا سمعتُه من أحدٍ في خطابٍ فيما أفهم. بل أعطاني العلمَ بذلك بشهوده، بالعين التي لا يُحجَب عنها شيءٌ في الأرض ولا في السماء: {وَلَا أَصْغَرَ مِن ذَلِكَ وَلَا أَكْبَرَ إِلاَّ فِي كِتَابٍ مُّبِينٍ} [يونس: 61].
to discuss [any] science except by the terminology of its people. Otherwise, most of what I have set down in this book of mine, no one set down before me in a book, so far as I know; nor have I heard it from anyone in [any] discourse, so far as I understand. Rather, [God] gave me the knowledge of that, by His showing [it], by the Eye from which nothing in the earth or in the heaven is veiled: 'nor [is there] anything smaller than that or larger, but [it is] in a clear Book' (10:61, Yūnus).
Qurʾān 10:61: Yūnus 10:61, the tail 'wa-lā aṣghara min dhālik wa-lā akbar illā fī kitābin mubīn' glossary: kashf al-Jīlī's strongest statement of the book's originality and its epistemology: 'most of what I have set down... no one set down before me in a book, so far as I know,' the knowledge given 'by the Eye from which nothing is veiled' -- i.e. by kashf and direct vision, the conventional terms borrowed only of necessity. A central datum for the work's character and authorship (cf. Bāb 13 §18).
واعلم أن كل شيءٍ من المعاني والإلهيات والأشكال والصور والأقوال والأعمال والمعدن والنبات وغير ذلك مما يُطلق عليه اسمُ الوجود، فإنه له حياةٌ في نفسه لنفسه، حياةٌ تامة كحياة الإنسان. لكن لما حُجب ذلك عن الكثيرين، نزّلناه عن درجته، وجعلناه موجوداً لغيره. وإلاَّ فكل شيءٍ من الأشياء له وجودٌ في نفسه لنفسه، وحياةٌ تامة، بها ينطق، وبها يعقل، وبها يسمع ويبصر ويقدر ويريد ويفعل ما يشاء.
And know that everything of the meanings, the divine [realities], the shapes, the forms, the sayings, the deeds, the mineral, the plant, and other [than that] of what the name of 'existence' is applied to -- it has a life, in itself, for itself, a complete life, like the life of the human. But since that was veiled from the many, we brought it down from its rank, and made it existent for another. Otherwise, everything of the things has an existence in itself, for itself, and a complete life, by which it speaks, and by which it reasons, and by which it hears, and sees, and has power, and wills, and does what it wills.
The fullest statement of the panvitalism: not only minerals and plants but even abstract 'meanings' and 'deeds' have 'a complete life, like the human's,' that speaks, reasons, and wills -- a life veiled from most, who therefore demote these things to mere 'existence for another.' This is the metaphysical ground of the eschatological proofs that follow (deeds and words appearing as living forms).
ولا يُعرف هذا إلاَّ بطريق الكشف، فإنا شهدناه عياناً. وأيّد ذلك الإخباراتُ الإلهية، فيما نُقل إلينا، من أن الأعمال تأتي يوم القيامة صوراً، تخاطب صاحبها، فتقول له: أنا عملك. ثم تأتيه غيرُها، فتطردها، وتناجيه.
And this is known only by way of unveiling -- for we have witnessed it directly. And the divine reports confirmed that, in what has been transmitted to us: that the deeds come, on the Day of Resurrection, [as] forms, addressing their owner, [and] so [a deed] says to him: 'I am your deed.' Then another comes to him, [and] so it drives [the first] off, and whispers to him.
glossary: kashf The eschatological motif of deeds embodied as living forms that address their doer -- a widely transmitted tradition (the handsome companion who is one's good deeds, the loathsome one who is one's evil, in the grave and at the Resurrection; Aḥmad, Ibn Ḥibbān and others). Invoked as scriptural confirmation of the panvitalism, not graded.
وكذلك قولُه: إن الكلمةَ الحسنةَ تأتيه في صورة كذا وكذا، والقبيحةَ تأتيه في صورة كذا وكذا.
And likewise his saying: that the good word comes to him in such-and-such a form, and the ugly [word] comes to him in such-and-such a form.
وقولُه تعالى: {وَإِن مِّن شَيْءٍ إِلاَّ يُسَبِّحُ بِحَمْدِهِ} [الإسراء: 44].
And His saying (exalted is He): 'And there is not a thing but it glorifies [Him] with His praise' (17:44, al-Isrāʾ).
Qurʾān 17:44: al-Isrāʾ 17:44, the clause 'wa-in min shayʾin illā yusabbiḥu bi-ḥamdihi wa-lākin lā tafqahūna tasbīḥahum' -- the scriptural anchor of the panvitalist tasbīḥ doctrine
فالأشياءُ جميعها تسبّح لله بلسان المقال، يسمعه من كشف الله عنه، وبلسان الحال، كما سبق بيانُه في هذا الباب. وتسبيحُه بلسان المقال، بحمد الله، حقيقيٌّ غيرُ مجازي، فافهم.
So the things, all of them, glorify God by the tongue of [actual] utterance -- [which] whoever God unveils [it] for hears -- and by the tongue of [their] state, as its exposition preceded in this chapter. And its glorification by the tongue of utterance, with the praise of God, is real, not metaphorical. So understand.
glossary: kashf A decisive interpretive choice: al-Jīlī reads 'everything glorifies Him' (17:44) as a REAL utterance (ḥaqīqī), heard by the one God unveils it to -- not, as many commentators take it, a mere figurative 'glorification by existence.' The literal reading follows from the panvitalism: if all things are truly alive, their tasbīḥ is truly spoken.
ومن هذا القبيل نطقُ الأعضاء والجوارح. وقد وجدنا فيما أعطانا الكشفُ جميعَ ذلك. فإيمانُنا اليومَ بالغيب إيمانُ تحقيقٍ، لا إيمانُ تقليد. ولا غيبَ عندنا إلاَّ من حيث نسبةِ الموطن.
And of this kind is the speech of the [bodily] members and the limbs. And we have found, in what unveiling has given us, all of that. So our faith, today, in the unseen is a faith of realization (taḥqīq), not a faith of imitation (taqlīd). And there is, for us, no unseen except in respect of the relation of the [bodily] dwelling-place.
glossary: kashf The speech of the limbs draws on Fuṣṣilat 41:20-21 (the skins that testify, and are made to speak by God). al-Jīlī's 'faith of realization, not imitation' is a key self-statement: what others believe of the unseen on report, he claims to have witnessed -- so for him the 'unseen' is unseen only relative to the bodily station, not in itself.
وإلاَّ فغيبُنا هو شهادتُنا، وشهادتُنا هو غيبُنا. ولم نذكر هذا التأييدَ النقلي إلاَّ لأجل المخاطَب، لا لأجل أنّا وجدنا هذا الكشفَ بهذا التأييد. فافهم وتأمّل، تَرشُد إن شاء الله تعالى. والله يقول الحق، وهو يهدي السبيل.
Otherwise, our unseen is our witnessed, and our witnessed is our unseen. And we mentioned this transmitted confirmation only for the sake of the one addressed -- not because we found this unveiling by this confirmation. So understand and ponder, [and] you will be rightly-guided, if God (exalted is He) wills. And God speaks the truth, and He guides to the way.
glossary: kashf al-Jīlī's methodological statement, important for reading the whole book: the Qurʾanic and hadith proofs he adduces are 'for the sake of the one addressed' (to communicate and confirm), NOT the source of his knowledge, which is direct unveiling. Scripture corroborates the kashf; it does not generate it. This is why the work reads as report of vision glossed by scripture, rather than scriptural exegesis.
Collation. Two-witness collated, staged 2026-06-03. Bāb 16 of the foundational opening band (al-Ḥayāt, Life) -- the first of the dedicated attribute-chapters (Life, Knowledge, Will, Power, Hearing, Sight, Speech). Witness-2 (ibnalarabi.com id=19) clean of navigation chrome; the trailing site-search widget EXCLUDED. No embedded poem. Develops the panvitalist doctrine (existence = life; everything is alive, life as the indivisible single-substance al-jawhar al-fard), the per-Name glorification (tasbīḥ) doctrine, al-Jīlī's claim of the book's originality by kashf, and eschatological proofs (deeds and words coming as forms; the speech of the limbs). A few kāf-as-alif OCR garbles restored. No lossy drop of authorial prose.
Qurʾān. Two loci verified verbatim against alquran.cloud, all tags correct: Yūnus 10:61 'wa-lā aṣghara min dhālik wa-lā akbar illā fī kitābin mubīn' (§23, the tail of the verse, on God's all-encompassing witnessing); al-Isrāʾ 17:44 'wa-in min shayʾin illā yusabbiḥu bi-ḥamdih' (§27, the universal glorification -- the scriptural anchor of the panvitalist tasbīḥ doctrine; cf. Bāb 2 §36). Sayings flagged, not graded here: the eschatological motif of deeds coming as forms that address their owner (§25) and the good/ugly word coming in forms (§26) -- known traditions of the grave and Resurrection (the handsome/loathsome companion; Aḥmad, Ibn Ḥibbān and others), invoked as confirmation; the speech of the limbs (§29) draws on Fuṣṣilat 41:20-21.